


the stars are shaken out of the sky

by Victoryindeath2



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo lives, F/M, Finn kind of shows up because he is the purest and best guy ever, Gen, Gift Fic, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Leia Wants Her Son Back, Poe Dameron and Ben Solo were childhood friends, Snoke is evil, a general overview of kylo ren's character, birthday fic for MJosephine10, but he also gets redemption, happy birthday maria!, i don't know how to tag, no one deserves redemption, redemption is a grace, that's the freaking point of it, where he has been and where he is going, with reylo because how could i not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victoryindeath2/pseuds/Victoryindeath2
Summary: Passion, strength, power, victory.  The things Kylo Ren has and has not.  Such things fade away, and grace is all that remains...





	the stars are shaken out of the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MJosephine10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJosephine10/gifts).



the stars are shaken out of the sky

 

            Passion is nothing, a howling wind that whirls desert sand about for an hour, maybe two, maybe two hundred, but it always dies, and all that remains is the shifted skin of a desolate planet. 

            Kylo Ren is passionate, tries not to be.  Snoke has endeavored to remove strong emotions from his mind for years, with surgical precision.

            But surgeries fail, people fail, _Kylo_ _Ren_ fails.

            (He hates himself only slightly less than he hates the ginger-haired man with the soul as bitter as wormwood.  And Kylo Ren despises Armitage Hux with every fiber of his being.)

 

            Strength is everything, a carefully constructed ocean that swings back and forth, following the instructions of the moon, of gravity, never over-stepping its boundaries, swallowing pride and fear and doubt because what need does an ocean have of these?

            Kylo Ren is—is not—could he ever be strong, with his heart that contorts and explodes inwards on itself time and again because it cannot reconcile with his mind, which _knows_ what he needs to do?

            (His heart is like his lightsaber, with its blade that runs up and down, a vicious cycle of shaking and snapping and just barely leashed burning.)

            Oh strength, you are what it takes to walk into Snoke’s throne room and absorb the vicious electrocution of mind and body.  We learn from our mistakes, they say, but our punishments?

 

            Power, Kylo Ren has it.  But has he ever been sure if he wants it?  The power to wield the Force, yes.  The power to stop lasers in mid-flight, of course.  Such things stir a pure, untainted elation in him, one of the few emotions he allows to live in him unchallenged. 

            But the power to forget his parents, to forget the tousle-haired boy he spent childhood summers with, taking apart the Millennium Falcon and putting it back together again before his—before Solo found out?  Well.  Kylo himself cannot say for sure.  He has done what he could—closed his eyes and torn through Dameron’s mind with rakes and claws.  Crushed his own weak heart and pierced his father through with a crackling lightsaber. 

            (Is power definable by how much you have?  Or how much you don’t?)

            All Kylo knows is, the scavenger girl took his grandfather’s lightsaber, Kylo’s lightsaber, and beat him within an inch of his life.  And that when his sliced face burns, he need not question the hurt, need not hide from Snoke the glassy look in his eyes, nor the anger that consumes his soul.  Because hate and pain are writhing, rattling snakes, half-forbidden things that Snoke will ignore, nay, maybe praise, because he thinks the venom is focused _outward_.

            (Or…would Snoke smile to know that…no, such thoughts are not safe, were never safe, and it doesn’t matter anyway because this is all passion, and passion is _nothing_ , Kylo must remember, power is about _control_ and Hux would rejoice to know that _Kylo has none, not anymore_ )

 

            Victory is worse than nothing.  In Kylo’s victories, he has lost everything he knows is not his to lose.  An uncle, who wished only to help.  A father, who begged forgiveness, who sought only a son.  A mother, who must curse the day she bore him, whose mental scream at the death of Han Solo was greater than Kylo’s own.  When Kylo triumphs, he loses the friends he might have had, the friends he did. 

            Chewie’s blaster bolt to Kylo’s side was at half-power, a small mercy, a great cruelty.  If Chewie ever cared for that little dark-haired boy so long ago, he would have disintegrated the grown-up ghost where he stood. 

            Victory is worse than nothing.

            (Defeat, surprisingly, is better than anything.)

 

            For years, Kylo Ren has laughed at the thought of peace.  No such thing exists, not anywhere in the galaxy, least of all in his own heart.  It is why he cannot stop thinking about the scavenger. 

            Rey is passionate.  She is strong.  She has power unlike anything Kylo has ever seen before, and she can control herself.  A storm may roil in her soul, but when he looks closely at her face, glowing purple under the crossing of red and blue sabers, all Kylo can see is a merging of pure energy and full moon serenity.  There is harmony in her desperation, in the wild thrusts of her lightsaber, because for some reason he cannot fathom, the Force binds all the wounds of her mind and heart, all her thoughts and feelings, and if it does so slowly, in a way that allows her to be fully herself, in her own time—Kylo can only watch in quiet awe.  It is like watching a galaxy unfold.

            (Kylo knows nothing anymore, but the sight of these stars sparks in him something he has not dreamed of in years—hope.)

 

            When it is dark, so dark, and Snoke tries to shake every star from the sky, Kylo finds the one thing that never left him completely—that _he_ never abandoned, no matter how much he tried.  Compassion.  A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another’s pain, a feeling so strong as to ignite a fiery desire to aid that person.  A movement, an action, mayhap a form of restitution.

            Kylo Ren offers his help to Rey, and together they defeat Snoke.  There is peace again, and shattered soul pieces brushed together in a pile, and _forgiveness_.

            What happens next is, to some extent, irrelevant.

 

            The aftermath, with all its consequences and all its undeserved gifts, is irrelevant because what matters is that Kylo Ren has been redeemed, partially because he wished for it, mostly because others gave him a chance when all common sensibilities screamed for his violent execution.

            And maybe a tribunal does condemn him to death, or maybe he suffers for years in a lonely prison somewhere, or maybe the punishment is _nothing_ compared to his crimes.  Maybe all but a few people (and no one more than Kylo Ren himself) shake their heads and say that he deserves so much more pain.

            One thing is for certain, though.  A mother’s love never fails.  Especially Leia’s love—there has never been, nor will there ever be, a man or woman more stubborn then the Princess and General. 

            And if, in their interactions with the prisoner, with the broken, repentant man, there are others who learn to forgive and to love, who would condemn them?

            The former friend, the man branded a traitor, the woman who shone with light so wondrous—what if they saw and understood and rose above human strengths?

 

            Poe Dameron accompanies Leia to Kylo’s cell one day, stands outside and listens, and is overwhelmed by lost years and lost souls.  He does not go in.  But a week later, he finds himself back in the cell block and standing in front of his old friend, more nervous than he has ever been, and he babbles about Dameron and Solo, what plans they had made for the future, before unrest and tragedy were born, and he thinks that he is an idiot to speak so, and that Kylo—Ben—will not remember, except Ben twists his lip into a half-smile, his father’s smile, and reminds Poe that Solo and Dameron always had a better ring to it.  And suddenly there they are, making plans for the future again, plans for adventure and exploration and a few hundred death-defying X-Wing races.

            Plans a certain ex-stormtrooper would never consider being a part of, except…except Poe is Finn’s best friend, his brother, and Poe gets so excited, and he seem so sure that the fearsome Kylo Ren is a changed man, so sure that with a few tugs of string, Kylo—Ben—will be released early, perhaps in a year or two, and there are so many things to do.  And Finn is brave, and he is good, and just because a man has murdered does not mean he is lost forever.  Nor should he be, Finn thinks, especially after he speaks about the matter with Rey and Leia.  Apparently, Ben Solo had been manipulated by that hideous bag-eyed creep for basically all his life, and if there is one thing Finn knows, it is the guilt a brain-washed person might experience for wrongs they once did.  It is a guilt he doesn’t wish on anyone, not even on Kylo Ren.  Sure, their situations were vastly different but…Finn makes a point to visit Kylo—Ben—once a week, and, after a few months, they actually manage to have a cordial conversation.  After that, an odd friendship brews.

            Maybe the only real measure of strength is how willing you are to offer your hand to your enemy who has hurt you.

            Maybe there is another real measure of strength—how willing you are to accept mercy from a man you once despised.

 

            Though he may never learn it (or maybe he will, if Anakin’s ghost has anything to say about it), Ben Solo’s grandfather once said, “Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi’s life.”  Maybe Ben isn’t exactly a Jedi, but he isn’t exactly a Sith either, nor a Dark Jedi, nor a Knight of Ren, not anymore.  He is simply Ben Organa Solo, a Skywalker, and if there is one thing Skywalkers know how to do, it is to love fiercely.

            And so Ben Solo does.  He loves his mother, he loves his father, he weeps for what he has done.  And he loves Rey. 

            He does not ever imagine that she could love him back. 

            He knows who he is, what his crimes are, what shade of night his soul must be, and so he loves quietly, ardently, without hope, without despair.  He takes what peace he can in their shared Force-bond, speaks to her occasionally, mostly tries not to bother her with the massive waves of guilt and sorrow that threaten to overwhelm him.

            But Rey, as he well knows, has a mind of her own and a heart that cannot be vanquished.  She does not give up on anyone ever.  At first she visits him because she feels responsible for him and indebted to Han and Leia.  Then she visits because she is curious about the Force, and his knowledge of it, and the bond that links their minds forevermore, and then—well, stars need a dark sky to shine in, don’t they? 

            A gentle love.

            (Defeat was better than anything, because of what came after.)

 

            What came after?

            A rising sun, a fading night, and time turns on and on, and years go by and there is no longer Jedi and Sith.  The Gray Jedi wield the flame that protects the galaxy, holds it in balance.  If the historians didn’t know better, they would say that Bastilla Shan and Darth Revan fly through the stars again…

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Maria!!! Thank you for stoking in me a great love for Reylo! You are the best and deserve all good things!


End file.
